The people of Midsomer Worthy are attempting to keep James Harrington from razing Setwale Woods and turning it into housing. This apparently means that the farm owned by Simon Bartlett will be lost. He teams up with an attorney, Bernadette Sullivan, to stop Harrington. In fact, they team up in more ways than one.
When two children report a body in Setwale Woods, no one believes them until their father sees it, now in a different place. The body is that of Simon's wife, Catherine, an unhappy woman who left a suicide note. It's later determined to be murder. Then there's another murder. So who's doing the killing, and why? In this episode, Barnaby gets some crucial help from the brother and sister, whose parents are tearing their hair out with worry. There is a big hole in this script, which is that no one ever says why the Bartlett farm will be lost if the housing development goes up. Harrington could not have forced Bartlett to sell his farm, yet there seems to be a great deal of angst about holding onto it.
Still, it's a good episode with a good ending. The best scene is the children boarding a bus for Causton and going to see Barnaby at home. He isn't there, but Joyce is, and the little boy isn't interested in the mystery -- he just wants food.
Entertaining.
